


Mare Undarum

by RaspberrySwish



Series: Second Chance at Childhood [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Apocalypse (mentioned), Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Reflection, Reggie Hargreeves psychically murdered from beyond the grave, Sibling Bonding, The Moon - Freeform, Younger Selves (mentioned), she gets tagged twice because shes important and also i love her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27883158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaspberrySwish/pseuds/RaspberrySwish
Summary: Luther wanders out to the balcony in the middle of the night to think.Instead, he finds Vanya.They talk.
Relationships: Luther Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: Second Chance at Childhood [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943638
Comments: 14
Kudos: 81





	Mare Undarum

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This fic is the second in a series, titled "Second Chance at Childhood". You don't need to know much beyond the basic plot to get this oneshot, but I highly recommend you read it anyways. (SCAC has the Hargreeves go back in time murder their dad after going through their 6th apocalypse. As of this fic, they just kidnapped and brought their younger selves, who they will now attempt to raise, into a house they bought, where they are keeping them captive until they calm down.) Fun, right?
> 
> Also! Hotel Oblivion is mentioned in this fic! I've never read the comics, but from what I've gleaned, it's basically a superprison on the moon. So take that how you will, I guess.
> 
> Anyways, this is my first time writing a fic with this particular tone, so I hope you guys enjoy it! <3

It was quiet on the rooftop of their new home.

So quiet that Luther almost didn’t notice the other person standing there.

“Oh, Vanya, I- uh-” he stammered.

Vanya didn’t respond for a moment, too lost in her own world, staring up at the stars as a cool breeze fluttered by.

“Luther!” she said after a moment, “Stay, please, you’re not intruding.”

He was uncertain, but moved forward, standing next to her by the railing anyways.

It was silent for a moment, then…

“What are you doing?”

Vanya shrugged, still looking out at the scenery.

“Staring. How about you, is everything okay?”

“I, well- the children.”

She looked at him with dismay.

“The children? Is everything alright, are they escaping, do you need my help?”

His eyes widened.

“Oh no, no, nothing like that. I’m just… worried about them. Us. Did we make a mistake in bringing them here? We can’t exactly take it back and-”

“Would you want to take it back?” Vanya asked him. 

“Would I-  _ no!  _ But what if we mess up, what if we make it worse and-”

She frowned.

“You’re worried we might hurt them worse then Dad.”

He nodded.

“Well,” Vanya thought for a moment. “I guess it’s always possible. We’re messed up, and don’t know the first thing about taking care of children, but from where I see it, we already have some things Dad doesn’t.”

Luther tilted his head. 

“Like what?”

“Well, we care. We’re trying to do what’s best for them, we want to help them, and I think as long as we keep trying to do those things, we’ll never end up like Dad, no matter how much we mess up along the way.”

“Because Dad never cared,” Luther whispered to himself.

“No,” Vanya said, placing her hand on his arm. “No, he didn’t.”

After a moment or two of silence Luther spoke again.

“I’m worried about me. Young me, that is. It took me so long to realize that Dad didn’t care about us, and still, my brain tells me the opposite. I have to remind myself, over and over, that he only did what was best for him. What helped  _ him.  _ I’m worried that-”

“That your younger self won’t ever figure that out,” Vanya finished.

“Yeah.”

“Well,” she said, “I think it’s going to be hard. Maybe even harder than with you. We took them all away from Dad so early, so he hasn’t really seen anything first hand, nothing he can’t just brush away. It’ll be harder, I think, to let go of that image in his head, especially without seeing Ben’s death, or-”

“My body.”

Vanya squeezed his arm before nodding sympathetically.

“Yes. In his head, he’s never had to question Dad’s choices or his intentions, and it may be even harder for him to come to terms with the truth when it isn’t right in front of him. But there’s a good thing.”

“There is?”

Vanya gave him a look and nodded.

“He can’t go back.”

Luther didn’t say anything, looking out at the night sky as the truth finally sunk in.

She was right. Dad was dead. They killed him, and there was no going back. Not for the children, and not for him. It felt good. Perilous... but good.

“Do you ever worry about her?” he asked after a minute or two.

Vanya looked at him.

“Who?”

“You.”

“Oh,” Vanya said, pulling something out of her pocket.

“Do you?” Luther asked.

“Young me? Not at all. Old me?” she took a puff of her cigarette. “ _Every_ _damn day._ ”

Luther looked surprised.

“Why? And where did you get that? Those are bad for you!”

Vanya looked down at the cigarette and shrugged.

“Habit from Sissy. It’s better than taking my pills.”

“Oh,” Luther mumbled, suddenly uncomfortable with the reminder of their father’s actions against her, “I-”

“It’s alright.” Vanya said. “You didn’t know.”

“But we should have noticed and-”

“You didn’t. It’s over now. Younger me is the one who still has to deal with it.”

Luther’s eyes widened, realizing what she meant.

“But you said you weren’t worried-”

She took another puff.

“I’m not. She’s going to be weaned off her pills gracefully and then have a wonderful life.”

He frowned.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It is. She’s getting everything she ever wanted, with none of the pitfalls.”

“That- you-” Luther was confused.

Suddenly it hit him.

“ _ You’re jealous _ .”

She shrugged.

“You aren’t?”

“I-”

“They get everything — a life without Dad, a full set of siblings, a future-”

Luther frowned.

“You have that too.”

“Do I? Do  _ we _ ?”

“Yes. Yes we do. We have those things because we fought for them. We went through countless trials, watched the world end over and over, all for those things. We went through hell for them, for Ben, for a life where we could be safe. And then we gave ourselves the best gift of all, we gave us  _ that life _ , without having to fight for it, to go through that hell again. Our younger selves aren’t something to envy, they’re something to be proud of, to be there for, because they’re our prize. A life without the pain.”

“But what about those of us who’ve felt the pain?” she countered. “What comes after hell?”

“We recover, we rise from it.”

“And how do you expect we do that?”

Luther was drawing a blank.

“I… I don’t know.”

“Well then,” Vanya said, looking back out at the stars. “I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

He guessed they would. But looking out at the night sky, running those thoughts through his head, he couldn’t quite imagine where  _ he  _ would go next, no matter how hard he tried.

After a long stretch of time, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, Vanya spoke again, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Sometimes…” she whispered, “I still can’t believe she’s there.”

“Who?” Luther asked, before following her gaze.

_ Oh.  _

The moon, standing full, bright, and most of all,  _ intact,  _ watched on.

“Sometimes…” Luther slowly confided, “I can still feel the ground crumbling beneath my feet.”

“The ground?” Vanya said. “What does that have to-  _ Apocalypse Number 5 . _ ”

He nodded solemnly.

“My own personal end of the world.”

“Can I ask what happened there?” she said. “I don’t think I ever knew why.”

Luther nodded.

“Hotel Oblivion. I could handle Dad locking us up, having to escape, but getting out, only to realize I was  _ there,  _ it was… horrible. It was like I was in a prison, trapped, only worse, because I had just escaped from prison, and Vanya, this was a million times worse because it was like-”

“It was  _ your prison _ .” she said, remembering her time in the anechoic chamber. “You were back there, just when you thought you were safe.”

He clenched his fists down on the balcony, the stone crumbling away, before hitting the ground.

“I was. It was like I was alone again, up on the Moon. It looked the exact same, and it was so quiet and so, so, terribly lonely, just like I remembered.

It was just like before, all of it, down to him sending me there, every little detail. __

So when his voice came over the suit, I-”

“You lashed out. Started hitting the ground and-”

A tear slid down his cheek.

“And I couldn’t stop.”

Vanya leaned her head against his shoulder.

“I know how that feels, the not stopping. With my concert, I- I had broken out of my cell, destroyed the house, but yet I just _ couldn’t _ stop. I just kept  _ playing _ , and  _ playing _ , and…  _ boom _ . It was all gone. I ended everything, and barely even noticed.”

“I’m sorry,” Luther said. “I’m sorry for locking you up there, I didn’t think-”

“No, you didn’t,” Vanya admitted. “But you apologized, and that was a long time ago. Ancient history.”

He sighed.

“It doesn’t feel very ancient.”

“No,” she agreed. “No, it doesn’t.”

“I don’t know if it ever will,” Vanya said after a moment. “I still see it, you know, when I close my eyes. The light, the moon, all of it. I try and find it sometimes, looking up at the night sky, making sure it’s still there. It always is, but I don’t think that ever will keep me from looking.”

“Yeah,” Luther agreed. “I keep looking at it too. And it keeps looking back, his face staring at me, smiling, taunting me,  _ laughing _ .”

Vanya tilted her head, as if trying to see it.

“You know,” she said after a moment. “I never really saw the ‘man on the moon’ that everyone always talks about.”

“You don’t?”

“No,” she answered. “I always saw a woman. Sobbing.”

Luther looked up at it, trying to somehow form that image. 

“What would the moon have to cry about?”

Vanya took a deep breath.

“A lot, I’d imagine. A small piece of rock, miles away from anything else, it’s only company the stars, who are much brighter, and long dead. I’d imagine it gets quite lonely.”

Lonely… the moon…  _ The moon was lonely? _

“ _ Maria _ .” Luther heard himself saying.

“Maria?”

“What’s left behind from lunar eruptions, they’re called maria. Or mare, if there’s one of them. It’s latin. For seas. Those are what make up the face. The eyes, the mouth, and the…  _ the tears. _ ”

“ _ Seas…”  _ Vanya whispered. “I quite like that.”

Luther nodded.

_ Me too. _

_ Seas. _

**Author's Note:**

> Next up: Breakfast! (probably, hopefully) <3
> 
> tua tumblr: @upside-down-umbrellas


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